Keep Customers Informed with Alexa

Deliver Fresh Content to More People

Deliver more content to more people—wherever they are, whenever they ask. Let customers use their voices as well as browsers and mobile phones to get your latest news. You can quickly make existing feeds available as Flash Briefings or deliver an in-depth experience of your own design.

Make Your Content Available via Voice

Learn how you can connect your RSS, HTTPS, or JSON feeds to Alexa using the Flash Briefing Skill API to deliver pre-recorded audio clips and text-to-speech (TTS) to customers.

You can make money through Alexa skills using in-skill purchasing (ISP) or Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills. Offer premium subscriptions in your custom skills, and expand the consumer reach of your existing feeds.

What is the difference between the “Flash Briefing Skill” and “Custom Skill” skill type?

With custom skills, you build a voice interaction model to handle customer requests. With the Flash Briefing Skill API, some of this work is done for you. The Flash Briefing Skill API taps into standardized Amazon language model so you don’t have to build the voice interaction model for your skill. Plus, your customers don’t need to remember your skill name or a specific invocation phrase. They simply need to enable your skill and ask, “Alexa, give me my Flash Briefing” to hear your content.

Would I ever create both a Flash Briefing skill and a custom skill?

Yes. If you want to add additional supported utterances or go beyond reading or playing content, you can also create a custom skill. However, content from a custom skill cannot be provided as a part of a customer’s Flash Briefing.

What type of content can I provide to create a Flash Briefing skill?

You can provide audio clips and text-to-speech content.

What format does the content need to be in?

Content should be provided in JSON or RSS format.

How do I make my Flash Briefing skill accessible to all Alexa customers?

Once you complete development and testing as described, you can submit your skill for certification. Once your skill passes certification you will receive notification and it will be available to customers in the Alexa app.